Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy derives from my understanding of the information systems field. From a research standpoint, it seems to me that the information systems field is a social science that is concerned with the interaction of humans in the presence of, with and influenced by information management technology. From years of experience in practice, I have learned that it is an intensely social, team based service business in which personal relationships within teams and with external entities are the key to success in the field. My teaching goals are therefore to communicate these realities to my students and to prepare them to assume their responsibilities to be successful information services professionals or as responsible customers of information services professionals.

Specifically, the skills that I seek to inculcate are those team-based skills needed to effectively provide their part of the service arrangement:
1) Individual skills necessary to manipulate the information technology to produce information technology artifacts that support a business process.
2) Team skills to work together to produce information services either as an information service professional or as the customer professional.
3) Interpersonal skills to transfer knowledge within and between teams to create service arrangements and successfully create and implement information services.
4) Management skills necessary to lead the teams in creation and implementation of service arrangements and information services

Additionally, for introductory courses taught to non-majors, I have additional goals to teach them about the real nature of information systems. It is not just for guys and geeks, but that there is a role for women and relationship oriented people. The object here being to recruit additional people into the discipline. In IS classes, I will seek to teach them that IS is not just playing with technology, that it is a service that provides value to the customers.

I will seek to achieve these goals by using appropriate methods for different applications and goals. Educational theory teaches us that the teacher functions in this case as a mediator of the world of Information Systems to the learner (Driver et al. 1994). This mediation requires exposing the students to both abstract instruction and situated instruction depending the background of the student and the subject to be communicated (Anderson et al. 1996). I therefore use combinations of abstract and situated instruction in coursework as best suits the knowledge that I am trying to transfer.

My perspective on assessment is to attempt to have it flow naturally from the activity being done. For basic propositional knowledge such as definitions and terms, I might use standard tests. However for procedural knowledge I might seek to have it flow from what has been done. For example, I might have them turn in for review what they accomplished in a workshop, followed by a project that required them individually to apply what they learned in the workshop on their own.

Teaching information systems is an intensely personal, interactive activity. I want to create a human face to my courses. In order to do this I seek to:

1) Establish a relationship with students. I will seek to do this by ensuring that I learn their names, sharing my personal experience and being as available as practical. The object of this is to create in the student a desire to share something of them with me.
2) Display a love for Information Systems. Even if they don't understand why I love it, expressing a love for IS will communicate to them that perhaps there is more to this subject that they first thought about it.
3) Focus on learning vs. arbitrary requirements. It is my goal for the student to learn the material rather than be penalized for not being able to learn within an arbitrary time period. Therefore I give predefined extensions to assignment due dates (with some score deductions). Depending on the assignment, I might also give a “second chance” to learn the material by doing a similar assignment. This allows them to improve their grade and learn the material.
4) Accommodate diversity. I do this be creating multiple different learning venues for the class such as lecture, hands-on workshop, interactive application. I also provide alternate test dates and other accommodations for religious practices.

Finally, I view my teaching as a work-in-process. It is very important to me and I have made a commitment to continuous improvement in my teaching. In an ever-changing field such as information systems, I will keep myself up to date in the areas that I teach. My research will constantly inform my teaching and I will constantly update my courses for the latest developments in the field.

Anderson, J.R., Reder, L.M., and Simon, H.A. "Situated Learning and Education," Educational Researcher (25:4) 1996, pp 5-11.
Driver, R., Asoko, H., Leach, J., Mortimer, E., and Scott, P. "Constructing Scientific Knowledge in the Classroom," Educational Researcher (23:7) 1994, pp 5-12.